19 Dec 2019
Doha, 18 December 2019. On the sidelines of the 2019 FIFA Club World Cup taking place in Qatar and at the end of a FIFA Strategic Development Workshop, a delegation led by FIFA visited Aspire Academy to familiarise themselves as well as learn about the Academy’s philosophy work and use of technology to enhance preparation and performance in sport.
The delegation was led by FIFA’s Chief Member Associations Officer, Véron Mosengo-Omba and included, FIFA Director, Member Associations Asia & Oceania, Sanjeevan Balasingham, several FIFA officials and more than 15 members from Association and Federations from Asia, Africa and Oceania who were taking part in the workshop. The FIFA delegation was met and welcomed to Aspire Academy by Professor Valter Di Salvo, Aspire Academy Director of Football Performance and Science who went on to lead the tour of the newly constructed, Aspire Football Performance Centre.
Professor Di Salvo took the opportunity to mention and share on some of the programs and initiatives started by Aspire Academy amongst them the "ASPIRE IN THE WORLD FELLOWS "- The world's leading community for youth football performance & science, a subject that triggered lively conversations on how to build strategies and development plans between Member Associations, Aspire and FIFA.
Speaking after the conclusion of the tour, FIFA’s Chief Member Associations Officer, Véron Mosengo-Omba highly commended and congratulated the leadership of Qatar for planning, setting up and running an institution like Aspire Academy. “I have never seen anything like this before. I am very impressed. One hears and sees what the country is doing in preparations for the FIFA World 2022 with the facilities, stadia, transport, roads and metro and one says it’s enough and fantastic then you come here to Aspire Academy and wow, you see that there is even more Qatar is doing for football. Football players in this country are very lucky to have this kind of place Aspire Academy and the. FIFA thanks Qatar for its contribution to football development through an institution like Aspire Academy. I will speak with my colleagues back at FIFA to see how we can best explorer opportunities and possibilities to synergise and cooperate on areas of mutual football development between, FIFA, Aspire and Member Associations some of whom we brought with us here on tour of Aspire,” concluded Mr Véron Mosengo-Omba.